Agenda Item:Preparations for ECU’s
review by SACS with regard to Core Requirements for General Education

Discussion:
Dr. David Weismiller, who has been appointed by the Chancellor and Provost to
head the preparations for our review for accreditation renewal by SACS, discussed
some of the issues regarding our committee in assessment of Core Requirement
for General Education.He explained that
not many colleges have assessment requirements, however there are programs
within departments that sometimes have outside accreditation.ECU’s accreditation comes due in 2013, so
preparations must be made to see how we may achieve satisfactory assessment at
the course level, department level, and school level.Bailey explained that as the Academic
Standards committee will oversee, the true GE outcomes would best be placed as
the responsibility of any unit or department since they are the most expert in
the specific discipline.For the SACS
review preparation, there might be a workgroup, perhaps ASC, for GE assessment,
another workgroup for DE assessment, and yet another for Quality
assessment.Another issue with regard to
SACS review is faculty credentials and the issue of the SOIS.How could the SOIS be improved upon and how
should it be used?Though it is early in
the process, Dr. Weismiller stated that we should look at those individuals
that have worked on the SACS review in the past.Faculty credentials as they have been
recorded are being stored and added to the SEDONA database.One problem is explaining faculty credentials
that seem less established due to fields that are just emerging.

Action
Taken:The committee will continue to
discuss these issues in future meetings

_______________________________________________

Agenda Item:The SOIS used for faculty
assessment with regard to SACS review

Discussion:Dr. Poteat states that there is a SACS
standard for the evaluation of faculty—a policy applied to all instructors
regardless of tenure-track or non tenure-track appointment.Bailey states that there is already a measure
for evaluation in place in that everyone (excepting graduate students) teaching
a course MUST be given an annual evaluation.

Action
Taken:Further discussion by the
committee will be necessary on this topic.

________________________________________________

Agenda Item:Change of policy to allow for SOIS
evaluations of co-instructors for DE courses rather than only primary
instructor.

Discussion: Dr. Poteat explained that the SOIS should be
able to evaluate 2 instructors per course for DE courses just like on-campus
courses.

Action
Taken:Approved

________________________________________________

Agenda Item:Development of a secure
system for storing SOIS results on-line

Discussion:
Dr. Poteat asks for our committee’s approval to explore moving SOIS results
from paper copies to an on-line database.Much time is spent pulling out results for individuals that have
misplaced their results.Of course the
long-term consideration for storage of SOIS results will need to be a secure
database—perhaps through One-Stop.Committee members suggest that Banner might be the eventual ideal
location.

Action
Taken:Approved

_______________________________________________

Agenda Item:Consideration of combining small sections
within units (if approved by the unit’s Chair) for the sake of compiling an
SOIS review

Discussion: Dr. Poteat explains that currently his
office has Faculty Senate approval to combine small sections of courses in
Music and Art for SOIS surveys.He has
extended this practice to other units when approved by the unit’s Chair.This is commonplace now in Music, Art,
Theatre, English, Psychology, and Education courses.This can be done with multiple sections of
the same course taught by the same instructor or the same type of course.

Action
Taken:Approved with the addition that
the faculty member as well as the chair must approve the combination of
sections.

________________________________________________

Agenda Item:Consideration of combining small sections of
face-to-face courses with DE courses (of the same course type) for SOIS surveys
when the sections are too small to evaluate separately.

Discussion:
Dr. Poteat said that this situation often arises in the Business school when
small sections of the same course are taught both face-to-face and as DE
versions.For instance, a graduate
statistics course with 3 students in a face-to-face setting could be combined
with a DE section containing 4 students.Usually these courses are really the same course but with different
section numbers.The data are combined
so students cannot be identified.Questions from the committee arose, however, concerning the designation
of the course—for there are some on campus web-based courses and then there are
off campus DE courses.The designation
has to do with student fees, though the assessment is alike.

Action
Taken:Approved, if the policy states
for all on-line courses

_______________________________________________

Agenda Item:Consideration of the use of SOIS results
from summer sessions and whether a policy should be established or just left to
the discretion of department units

Discussion:
Dr. Poteat explained that the use of SOIS in summer session has been
voluntary.A proposal to make summer
SOIS mandatory was defeated by the faculty senate.The question remains, however, if it is used
in the summer session if there should be an established policy on its use.Could the SOIS results during the summer be
considered for merit pay raises?Bailey
and others oppose this issue as the summer session is outside of the 9 month
contract—faculty elect whether or not to teach summer school and it should not
be used against those who elect not to teach during the summer to allow summer
SOIS to be used.

Action
Taken:The committee agrees that the
use of the SOIS during the summer should be left up to the discretion of the
department chairs and faculty member.A
faculty member may ask his or her department chair to include summer SOIS
results in his evaluation, but it should not be mandatory.

_______________________________________________

Agenda
Item:Revision of Appendix C in the
Faculty Manual with regard to the use of the Student Opinion of Instruction
Survey in the evaluation of faculty to reflect the Faculty Senate resolutions.

Discussion:
Dr. Poteat explained that it is necessary to revise the Faculty Manual Appendix
C to be more specific with regard to the use of the SOIS in faculty
evaluations.He suggests that the SOIS
results should be only one item and be move further down the list of criteria
that chairs should consider in faculty evaluations.He states that the use of the SOIS as the
primary method of evaluating teaching effectiveness is not warranted by the
extant research data. He suggests the following revision:

1.The
quality of teaching must be evaluated by means of:

a.formal
methods of peer review, including direct observation of the classroom teaching
of new and tenure-track faculty.

b.Review
by the unit administrator and/or peers of course materials including syllabi,
reading lists, outlines, examinations, audiovisual materials, student manuals,
samples of student’s work on assignments, projects, papers, examples of student
achievement, and other materials prepared for or relevant to instruction.

c.Data from surveys of student opinion when an
individual faculty member’s data is consistently (more than 2 semesters) and
significantly (more than 1 standard deviation) from the unit’s mean for similar
courses.

d.Other
procedures provided for in unit codes

The hope is,
Poteat said, that chairs will do things differently in looking at final exams,
syllabi, and course materials rather than primarily SOIS results.Several members mentioned problems, however,
with what is set out and what is practiced.Bailey stated that SOIS results should really be considered if there is
some deviation—not for average teaching.This means that you would not be using the SOIS as much for primary
evaluation, and thus you would have to look at the true content of the
courses.There was further discussion
about item c) in the list above—it seems unclear and may be
misinterpreted.

Action
Taken:Linda Wolfe suggested and the
committee agreed that this issue needs more discussion after some further
thought. Dr. Poteat will be invited to return to our next meeting to facilitate
the discussion on this topic.

_______________________________________________

Agenda Item:Outcomes assessment of Foundation courses

Discussion:
Led by George Bailey who has prepared the draft for outcomes assessment, the
discussion centered upon the goals of the assessment and how these goals
conform to the requirements of the SACS review.Bailey stated that there must be direct connections between the
Foundation goals and the learning outcomes.You can target specific goals within the Foundation goals as long as
they fulfill an objective.He stressed
that we need to identify weaknesses and not just strengths so that we
can show improvements based upon these weaknesses.The individual units should evaluate and
assess their own foundation courses based upon the foundation goals and tell us
the outcomes.Poteat states that SACS
requests that each institution sets its own goals in assessment.He said that there are already some
assessment criteria from some units, but other assessment will need to be
done.The CLA is now mandated by the
State of North Carolina, which was approved by the Board of Governors and the
Faculty Assembly.Poteat states that
there will likely be a pretest and a post-test in Composition and maybe in
Mathematics.This will be a first step
toward the SACS review preparation.Dr.
Poteat then outlined the steps of the SACS review which involves an off-site
visit (with ECU reviewed and compared to other like schools), a written response
by ECU with regard to the list of deficiencies, an on-site visit (in which the
SACS reviewers look at the ECU responses and its plan to remedy) and finally a
Quality Enhancement Plan.Other issues
were raised concerning courses that were not recently approved for Foundations
credit—how would these be evaluated?Can
or should outcomes assessment be used to make older courses fall in line with
current Foundation goals?Most agree
that it will not be an easy task to encourage faculty to list the weaknesses
rather than the strengths of their courses.

Action
Taken:The issue of outcomes assessment
will be tabled for now and revisited in future meetings.

ADJOURNED:3:50 p.m.

NEXT MEETING: Monday,
November 19, 2007

ITEMS TO BE DISCUSSED: Further
discussion about the use of the SOIS and teaching outcomes and assessment; also
discussion concerning ITCS proposal to change student e-mail